Crossing Don Mills primer for South Bayview gentry

March 6, 2017

Sunny Food Mart

Cash Now and Filipino Boutique

Ten languages

Stewing and stock pot

Sacks of rice

Salmon

Hard at work

Scrubby’s Coin Op

It’s not far to the Flemingdon Park Shopping Centre at 747 Don Mills. You have to cross over to get there however. When you do, it’s necessary to poke your way back along Gateway Blvd. past the Tim’s, Subway and Shoppers Drug Mart to get to the soul of the place. These would be enterprises like Sunny Food Mart, Scrubby’s Coin Laundry and Dry Cleaning, WebFusion Internet Cafe and the 180 degree Vape Store. It’s a collection of businesses both local and chain-owned forming a primer on the neighborhood they call Toronto’s landing-place. It is the home to thousands from countless lands, many of them in need of places like Cash Now. There are no banks or credit unions here. The pay-day counter is located at the rear of the Filipino Boutique on an interior (but still open air) walkway. Sunny Food Mart is owned by a Chinese family which has just opened the third Sunny in Markham. Walking among the groceries — bags of fried onions, coconut milk, sacks of rice, pork belly and cans with unreadable labels — puts you on the periphery of life here. The sign says they speak ten languages at Sunny and we’re betting there’s an eleventh, Tagalog, in there too. Of course the Philippines is a largely bilingual nation (Tagalog and English).